2025-03-27 · auto-analysis (draft)
The Billionaire Building America's AI Military | EP #158
Palmer Lucky discusses the future of humanoid robots in defense applications, the potential of exoskeletons, and reflects on the journey of starting Oculus, emphasizing passion-driven innovation and the challenges of entrepreneurship. The podcast discusses the integration of AI in military technology, focusing on the $22 billion contract for integrated visual augmentation systems, and the company's approach to innovation and product development in the defense industry. Discussion on autonomous military technology, criticism of Cost Plus contracts, and plans for wildfire technology. Peter Diamandis discusses the criteria for choosing problems to work on, the importance of health and wellness, and the benefits of collaboration in AI development. Peter Diamandis discusses his views on following one's dreams, the importance of innovation in the U.S. government, and shares his inspiration for
Topics
AI and Robotics AI|Robotics ▶ 0:00
Military Technology Geopolitics|Military ▶ 0:00
Exoskeleton Technology Tech ▶ 2:00
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Economy|Entrepreneurship ▶ 4:00
AI AI ▶ 11:38
Defense Geopolitics ▶ 16:22
Innovation Tech ▶ 16:50
Future Technologies Other ▶ 15:17
AI in Military AI|Robotics|Geopolitics ▶ 17:47
Defense Industry Geopolitics|Economy ▶ 18:05
Wildfire Technology Economy|Health ▶ 20:41
Tech Development Tech ▶ 25:10
Health Health ▶ 32:06
Entrepreneurship Other ▶ 32:31
Predictions made
open Palmer Lucky: Humanoid robots will be used in defense applications, but not as expected, with the first use being to operate existing systems.
“we're going to see humanoid robots in defense applications pretty soon but they're not going to be for what people expect the first use is not going to be like humanoid Special Forces door kickers it's going to be guys you know robots who walk around with about the physical ability of maybe an 85y old man and they operate a lot of them existing systems we have”
Your call:
open Palmer Lucky: Exoskeletons will be more prevalent in the consumer and civilian sectors, not in the military.
“you're going to see exoskeletons more in the consumer and civilian sector and we had one here people just want to do cool than people who are actually out to do a job”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: Andril will successfully implement the integrated visual augmentation system in about 6 months.
“I'm going to be able to get done in about 6 months what other companies would take eight years to do so amazing.”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: Northwestern United States is going to burn in the next 20 years.
“the amount of dry kindling in the forest has exceeded 50% and there will be just continual burning for it.”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: Collaboration will lead to better outcomes than competition.
“that but by the way uh something you just said which is important that I love about X prize is while we run this competition we also create extraordinary collaboration between the teams”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: Andal will focus on important problems that the Pentagon and Congress care about.
“if you're going to move fast enough you you need to work on important stuff that they want to help you work on if you're going to move fast enough”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: Andal will have significant products in the showroom within a year or two.
“that's awesome dude it was about 13 years ago I had my two kids my two boys and I remember at that moment in time I made a decision to double down on my health uh without question I wanted to see their kids their grandkids and really you know during this extraordinary time where the space Frontier and Ai and crypto is all exploding it was like the most exciting time ever to be alive and I made a decision to double down on my health and I've done that in three key areas the first is going every year for a fountain upload you know Fountain is one of the most advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics companies I go there upload myself digitize myself about 200 gigabytes of data that the AI system is able to look at to catch disease at inception you know look for any cardiovascular any cancer any neurod degenerative disease any metabolic disease these things are all going on all the time and you can prevent them if you can find them at inception so super important so Fountain is one of my keys I make that available to the CEOs of all my companies my family members cuz you know health is a new wealth uh but beyond that uh we are a collection of 40 trillion human cells and about another 100 trillion bacterial cells fungi V and we you know don't understand how that impacts us and so I use a company and a product called viome and viome uh has a technology called metatranscriptomics it was actually developed uh in New Mexico the same place where the nuclear bomb was developed as a biod defense weapon and their technology is able to help you understand what's going on in your body to understand which bacteria are producing which proteins and as a consequence of that what foods are your superfoods that are best for you to eat or what food should you avoid right what's going on in your oral microbiome so I use their testing to understand my Foods understand my medicines understand my supplements and viome really helps me understand from a biological and data standpoint what's best for me and then finally you know feeling good being intelligent moving well is critical but looking good when you look yourself in the mirror saying say you know I feel great about life is so important right and so a product I use every day twice a day is called one skin developed by four incredible PhD women that found this 10 amino acid peptide that's able to zap scile cells in your skin and really help you stay youthful in your look and appearance so for me these are”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: The U.S. government will cut spending and develop more effective techniques due to necessity.
“I think that that will force people to tighten their belts and think hard about where we're spending money and develop more effective techniques.”
Your call:
open Unknown: Bureaucrats will continue to prioritize the status quo over innovative solutions.
“no bureaucrat ever got fired for doing the same thing his predecessor did right”
Your call:
open Unknown: Defense companies will continue to prioritize low-risk, established revenue streams over innovation.
“suppose I were the CEO of a major defense company and I were to announce that we're going to be like anderol we've seen the light we've seen the way we're going to be a defense product company instead of putting 1% of our Revenue back into internal research and development we're going to put 100% of our Revenue back into irad you know what's going to happen you know what that CEO is going to say the next day nothing he's already been fired by the board it it's it's that that's not what his investors hired him to be”
Your call:
open Unknown: Innovation in the tech industry will continue to be influenced by science fiction.
“I'm not going to be able to do as well sitting on my own in a room thinking about what the future could be as the combined works of the top let's say thousand sci-fi authors over the last century right”
Your call:
open Peter Diamandis: A time without war will come in his lifetime or his children's lifetime.
“I would love to see personally in my lifetime where we're we're at a time where we don't even have to talk about war as an industry.”
Your call:
Numbers that matter
- 13 months
- $10 billion
- $60 billion
- 10 billion humanoid robots by 2040
- Microsoft's entire mixed reality business
- 50%
- 200 gigabytes of data
- 40 trillion human cells
- 100 trillion bacterial cells
- 10 amino acid peptide
- tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars
- 1%
- 100%
- 60%
- 30%